Since 2000 Peter Fattinger is teaching at the Department of Housing and Design at the Vienna University of Technology. His educational focus lies in the implementation of design-build studios which offer students the unique opportunity to experience the different stages of a small, but real building project: From the initial design sketch to the development of models and detailed drawings, all the way through the actual construction process to the final appropriation of the built result. Up to now a big variety of projects have been realized by students on a 1:1 scale: mobile kiosks, temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, installations in public urban space, community buildings in south African townships as well as rebuilding projects on the Indonesian island of Nias.

Learning by doing

The project based learning method fosters learning in a very immediate way: within the project students have a hands-on building experience were they can learn a lot about building techniques and detailing, how to deal with the budget, schedule and unexpected obstacles, as well as to work in collaboration with others and communicate with real clients, local authorities and material suppliers. The immediate goal of the design-build-studio is not only to build architecture, but rather to give students the possibility to evaluate the quality of their thinking against the constraints of the real world and to understand the implications of their decisions in a broader context.